A recent study has found that the majority of retail apps for Android leak personal information – raising significant privacy concerns. After reviewing 250 common Android apps for mobile, NowSecure found that 70% of them leaked sensitive personal data such as geolocation, account numbers, names, usernames, emails, phone numbers, and other details. According to Mobile Marketer:

  • Retail apps are the worst offenders, according to the study, which was emailed to Retail Dive: 82% of brick and mortar retail apps “actively” leak sensitive data and 92% of online retail apps do. In fact, just 8% of online retail apps were not at risk for exposure of personal information, NowSecure said.
  • The safest apps are from financial and insurance companies, which NowSecure said is due to tighter regulation of those industries.

NowSecure recommends that users delete any retail apps in order to keep their information secure. NowSecure told RetailDive:

After extensive testing, NowSecure is issuing a global warning to the millions of mobile app consumers and businesses to temporarily stop using top retail and e-commerce apps. Millions of users operate under the false assumption that the apps on their phones are safe.

Apps aren’t the only risk to retail shoppers – according to RetailDive, loyalty fraud has increased by nearly 90% over just the past year.